Customer Reviews

Angela's Ashes (Scholastic ELT Reader) (Scholastic ELT Reader)

5 star:		(1,135)
4 star:		(246)
3 star:		(69)
2 star:		(56)
1 star:		(70)

 

 

Angela's Ashes is a book so filled with remorse and sadness, it's amazing that the reader somehow finds themself completely and joyfully satisfied. The novel revolves around the penniless childhood of Frank McCourt and begins in America with four-year-old Frank and his three year-old brother Malachy, who bears the same name as his father, and the infant twins, Eugene and Oliver, and the memories of the baby Margaret, "already dead and gone." Your heart goes out to the poor family, blessed with a loving mother, Angela, and yet cursed with a father who means well, but is constantly drunk or yearning for the "pint," as they call it. Early in his life, McCourt's family moves to Ireland, with help from his aunts and grandmother. Unfortunately, money is not easily found in Ireland either, and the McCourt family migrates from home to home, barely surviving on the few shillings Malachy McCourt doesn't spend at the local pub. The McCourts experience tragedy upon tragedy. His physical romance with a young lady named Theresa Carmody sick with consumption, his unfortunate habit to "interfere with himself," and the sad moment when in a drunken stupor on his first pint he strikes his own mother causes Frank to fear he is doomed to an eternity in hell. Unbelievably, despite all of the terrible things that happen in Frank's childhood, there are moments described in the book that give the reader a complete sense of joy and hope. I immensely enjoyed this memoir and would recommend it to any reader. I was especially enamored of the style of writing in which Frank McCourt chose to write. The words seemed as if they gently tumbled directly out of the mouth of the seven-year-old Frankie, or mischievously flew from Frank as an thirteen-year-old "working man." This novel was exquisitely written and is a jewel to read, as well as a treasure to remember.

What a ride! You'll laugh, cry, exhilarate, and despair-all on the same page. Trapped in a childhood of extreme poverty in Limerick, Ireland, Frank McCourt not only survives but thoroughly conquers. In the depths of even this much misery, however, there are small mercies and kindnesses and they are not lost on him. This is what gives the book it's humanity-the ability to withstand horrific circumstances through humor, determination, and forgiveness-and triumph with soul intact. And the people! They seem more alive in ink than most of us seem in flesh.

This has to be one of the best books I've read in a LONG time. It was refreshing to find a book that could keep my wandering mind and High School attention span in check. The trials of the Mc Court family were nothing to laugh at but I often found myself trying very hard to surppres laughter while reading in a classroom where you could easily hear a pin drop. The humerous sections were not based around the events that were taking place, but more around how Frank, as a child, viewed what was going on. The McCourt children knew very little of life and death. What they did know was taught to them by their drunken father and manic depressive mother. Frank seemed to have a slight grasp on the idea that once his younger siblings died he would never see them again, yet he still had many innocent questions. At a very young age Frank was questioning how death happened. He saw a dog get hit by a car and bleed to death. Later on he made another child bleed on the playground. Thinking that blood was death after seeing the dog die from it, Frank feared that he had killed his friend when in all actuality it was a minor injury. Later on in the novel when others take ill and die Frank questions why there was no blood and yet they died. The lack of knowledge and simple questions that Frank had as a child added a great deal to the novel. It was almost depressing when I realized that he would never get those questions answered and just keep wondering. While reading I found myself often forgetting that this was a true story and wondering how an author could come up with a plot line with this many twists and turns. All in all I LOVED this book. It earned each and every one of the five stars not only because it kept my attention for longer than humanly possibly, but because of the way McCourt took tragic events and somehow made the reader believe that for a split second something comical was going on.

Charles Dickens once said, "In the little world in which children have their existence, whoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only a small injustice the child can be exposed to; but the child is small; and its world is small." Angela's Ashes amounts to a brilliant recollection of childhood injustice which is indeed... LARGE! As I read the book, I was appalled at the depth of poverty that Frank McCourt and his family endured, and yet, I can't count the number of times I actually laughed out loud at the "way" in which the story is told. I've never read anything so simultaneously light and weighty. McCourt is witty, and is always in character, and that character is the child who was an eye-witness to every event. (An intriguing, fiercely narrative writing style is consistent throughout the book. ie., there are never any quotation marks).

The story is a powerfully moving disclosure of the perils of alcoholism. If it wasn't for the fact that Frank's father could not walk PAST a pub, the family would not have been so destitute. What little money Malachy McCourt earns is forever spent on alcohol, and the amazing thing is that it is spent shamelessly. Mother and children practically starve while dad staggers home in a drunken stupor night after night. Frank says of his father's false promises... "He'll give us a nickel for ice cream if we promise to die for Ireland and we promise but we never get the nickel." Injustice.

In my opinion, the redeeming majesty of this memoir is that through it we learn a wondrous fact... that shamelessness, irresponsibility, and stupidity do not necessarily have to be handed down to the next generation. Frank broke the mold, and chose self-awareness as his aspiration. I believe that the crucial turning point in his life came when, at the age of eleven he was convalescing at a hospital and came to the conclusion that "it's lovely to know the world can't interfere with the inside of your head." As readers of Angela's Ashes, we become the grateful recipients of this precocious revelation.

Mr. McCourt has received much recognition for his book, and all of it is deserved. I have no idea what he has gained monetarily from its publication, but somehow I think it's a bit more than his aforesaid promised nickel. Way to go. You are an inspiration to the world.

Even at the most difficult of times, there is always hope for better to come. The narrator of the story, Frank McCourt, conveys this throughout his acclaimed memoir Angela's Ashes. Born in Depression-era Brooklyn and raised in Limerick, Ireland, Frank lived in poverty throughout most of his life. His mother, Angela, would sing to her children at night, giving them hope that one day there would be enough food and happiness for everyone, even though there was barely any hope left for herself. It is the coming-of-age story of Frank McCourt as he grows from an impoverished childhood to a maturity at the age of nineteen, when he is able to plan his own course in life. Before the age of ten, Frank is a witness to the death of his sister and two brothers. His father does not work much and when he does, he spends all of his earnings drinking at the local pub. He also is fond of telling stories and reminding the children that they hopefully will die for Ireland. Through all of the difficult times he had to endure, he grows spiritually, morally and intellectually. His family remains strong in spirit even through the poverty, near starvation and harassment.

This wonderfully written and deeply moving memoir is a story that changes your perspective and captivates your heart. It is narrated in the first person and is told in the present tense. This kind of immediacy centers on the reality of the child's experiences and avoids the impression, as the past tense might, that the story is being reflected upon by an adult on his childhood. The language used throughout the memoir is informal and common. Regional, Irish phrases, and vulgar expressions are used often to convey the way people really talked during the author's childhood in Limerick. Both tears and smiles are brought together as close as they be in this style of writing. An example of type of language used: "The master says it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith and dad says it's a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there's anyone in the world who would like us to live. My brothers are dead and my sister is dead and I wonder if they died for Ireland or the Faith. Dad says they were too young to die for anything. Mam says it was disease and starvation and him never having a job. Dad says: `Och, Angela,' puts on his cap and goes for a long walk" (113). The theme of poverty is persistent throughout the memoir. To the people in Limerick, poverty is accepted as a fact of life; there is nothing much to help the poor out of their misery.

The title of the memoir indicates the ashes that fall from Angela's cigarettes and those in the fireplace that she continuously stares at blankly. Her ashes represent her crumbling hopes of raising a healthy family with a supportive husband. These dreams are withering and have almost died so that all she is left with are the smoldering ashes from the fire that provides them warmth. Frank grows to learn that he must take on the responsibility of keeping his own dreams alive in the end. At the end of the book, he leaves his broken family behind in order to make himself whole again in America.

This is one of the best books I have ever read!

Frank McCourt writes about his youth growing up in NYC and Ireland. He lives in near desperate conditions because of a father who could not keep a job and could not resist "the drink." Yet young McCourt does not quite despair because of the squalor in which he is living. He finds humor in his daily life, which he describes in much incredibly fascinating and delightful detail. This book follows him through the addition of brothers and a sister to his family, followed by the sad early death of too many of them, the sacrifices of dignity his mother makes to maintain a home and food and clothing, his adventures with local kids, mishaps at school, the threat of eternal damnation he feels for all of the naughty things he does, a number of jobs to help aid his family upon the departure of an alcohol-enslaved father, and finally his own departure to embark upon a life of his own.

Frank McCourt's young outlook on life is so unique and enjoyable, you will be delighted by his ever hopeful perspective. The writing is hilarious. You will chuckle at even the little things, including how he refers, in his Irish way, to things as "some class of..." this or that, and his dirty boy stuff as "interferring with himself" or "the excitement." Frank McCourt shares with his readers an honest, detailed, and humorous memoir of his boyhood.

I think everyone should read this book. I highly recommend it.

Like some reviewers, I found it hard to get past the initial extreme emphasis on poverty. However, poverty is not the point. Hope is the point. Reading this book can be a harrowing experience at times, but is ultimately a joyful one. Anyone who came away from this book with a sense of dread missed the point. The story may be sad, but Mr. McCourt writes it with such beauty and forgiveness that it is a cause for celebration.

Frank McCourt piles on so many examples of the overwhelming poverty he experienced during his childhood that I almost put down the book in despair after reading just forty pages. I'm glad that I didn't.

Despite the misery of his childhood, McCourt's memoir includes a number of lively and humorous vignettes. Two of my favorites are his the account of his attempts at Irish dancing, and the hilarious description of Frank's ill-fated first Communion.

Nevertheless, McCourt does not mask his anger at the institutions that failed him and his dyfunctional family. School teachers (with one exception) were uninspiring, church people shut the door in his face or expected the poor to grovel for handouts, government officials lacked empathy.

McCourt doesn't fall into the trap of over-generalization, though. Most people, despite their flaws, have their redeeming qualities in McCourt's account. Most notably, his hard-drinking, criminally irresponsible father also told beautiful stories, regaling Frank with tales of Irish heroes. No hero himself, McCourt's father passed his gift for telling an enthralling story to his son.

I bought the book thinking it would be a very light reading material which I heard from those who read it. I don't know how one can write with such humor and lightness about a very unfortunate life... McCourt's attitude is very much reflected in the way he had written the book.. No bitterness, no remorse... I laughed and cried while reading it...... an excellent read!

I kept hearing about and seeing this book, and I wondered who this fellow was( I had never heard of him), and why I would be interested in reading about his life. Now, after picking it up and reading it, I can honestly tell you that few books have affected me the way this one has.

For those who love the language, you're struck with the beauty of the writing, but most importantly you feel helpless as you grow up with McCourt. It's true, everybody has a story to tell, but this one is most special. He has a gift, and I am glad he shared it with us.

Put it in your shopping cart now. It's as close to literature as we've produced here in a long time.